


the stars, the moon, they have all been blown out

by Marsali



Series: Like Starbursts So Bright [1]
Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, Coma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Jaal is a sweetheart, Jaal reads Ryder fairy tales, M/M, Peebee is nice too, Sara is not a happy camper, Scott is being an ass, finally my experience with sleep paralysis has some use, i dont care, i'm the master of snippets, say awwwww, the universe is fucked but differently this time, this is not how comas work, you already knew this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 04:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10631937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marsali/pseuds/Marsali
Summary: They think she is asleep.They are wrong.And while Scott is hiding from her, busily pretending that it is the galaxy that keeps him from visiting her, Sara finds a blessed reprieve from the suffocating darkness around her in the form of a stranger with a deep, rumbling voice.





	

They thought she was asleep.

They, Harry, Lexi, this Liam guy that had once come by, Scott, probably even SAM … they thought she was soundly sleeping, impervious to time and its passing. That she was gently being rocked by dreams that held her in arms soft like cotton. Or perhaps they thought she did not dream at all. That she had no idea of the time creeping past, of the people busily shuffling around her. That she was out like a light and once her body was good and ready she would wake up, not knowing time had gone by until they told her that it did.

Well, they were _wrong_.

Sara was agonizingly awake, though her eyes were shut and her body motionless. Time had become heavy and rubbery like molasses. She had no real idea how long she had been like this and every day felt like another six hundred years slowly dragging by.

Darkly, she wondered if this was the price she had to pay for leaving her galaxy and moving on to this one. Like Pandora had paid for her curiosity when she had opened her box, Sara was being punished for hers. Or perhaps she was being punished for all their curiosities combined. Someone had to play the scapegoat, right? And who better than she? Daughter of Initiative poster boy Alec Ryder that she was, it only made sense that she took on this burden while Scott went traipsing about god knew where.

Rationally, she knew that thinking like this would only make the hands gripping her, and trying to pull her under, stronger. She knew that this musing served no other purpose than making things even harder than they already where. But what else was she to do? Harry spoke to her once or twice a day, let her know if Scott had done something especially heroic, or when her vitals were very good. (How good could they be if she. would. not. wake. up?)

She had taken to listening hard when she felt that somebody was sitting or lying in one of the beds on either side of her. But people fresh out of cryosleep tended to be not very interesting. For all that people thought they were unique, little snowflakes they all talked about the same stuff.

Are were there yet?

What date is it?

What’s the situation?

Is my family up, too?

When can I get out of here?

It was the same story over and over. Sara knew the year. And she knew that they had arrived. And that they were basically fucked. She had no desire to hear it over and over again, but this was what her life had become. Like Sisyphus who rolled a boulder up a hill each day, only to have it roll back down all the way in the evening, she lay here, listening to the same procedure on repeat.

She had grown to hate each and every one of these people.

Sara didn’t _mean_ to. While she had a bit of a temper, was easily angered if somebody disturbed her, or sometimes for no reason at all, she had never before felt this beast inside of her trying to claw its way through her chest and out. Being angry had always felt like a string snapping inside of her. Sudden and irritating. The anger echoed on for a bit but ebbed away steadily and fast. Now she was angry all the time. Like ants crawling. She could not stop. She hated all these people around her, asking all their dumb questions, not knowing how good they had it.

So what if nothing had turned out the way they had thought it would? Traveling here was an adventure. If you don’t want to go spelunking, stay away from caves. If you don’t like the unexpected, don’t go on an adventure. Easy as that.

So what if they had to stay an hour or two to get checked out? It was only hours! Minutes, merely sixty of them or so. Sara couldn't for the life of her say how many seconds it had been for her, and felt the minutes they added up to piling up with every moment she stayed here like a blanket that steadily suffocated her a bit more with every breath she drew. She could not move. She could not _move_. Nothing had ever felt like this. Being trapped in your body. Not being able to convince it that it was awake. Sara had never appreciated the way her fingers, her legs, her cheeks had simply obeyed her every direction without much of a thought. Now that she had spent hours upon hours trying to convince her uncooperative flesh to so much as twitch until she screamed and screamed silently into the void of her mind, she knew what a gift that was. If she ever woke up she would relish in every blink.

And so what if their loved ones were not up yet? At least they _had_ them. Sara was an orphan. Her mother was dead and buried in the Milky Way. Her father was dead and buried … somewhere here. She had no idea. Where even was he? Where would she go if she ever wanted to visit his grave? Was there one at all? Sara had no idea what her father had wanted to be done with his remains. Maybe he had wanted to be spaced? His ashes scattered between the stars he had placed even above his kids? Or maybe he wanted to be buried on the planet that killed him. There was a dark sort of poetry in that, Sara thought. Her Dad probably had respect for the thing that finally did him in.

The point was _she did not know_. And that was the fault of precisely one person.

Scott.

Her twin, her brother. Whom she loved. He was her little brother, how could she not? She’d done everything with him. Every first had been shared between them, save for the stuff you didn’t do with your twin unless you were seriously fucked up. And while the Ryders had been a dysfunctional bunch they had never been that bad. Talk about twincest, no thank you. But they had shared their first steps, their first words, all only a few minutes within each other. Their first day of school, their first grounding, their first hangover with Scott puking in the bathtub because Sara had beaten him to the toilet. While Sara liked to test the waters, to make sure it was safe, she always let Scott follow her. That’s the way it worked between them. Sara led and Scott followed.

She had thought that was an arrangement that suited them both. Apparently, she had been wrong.

What other explanation was there? Scott had only visited her once and only because SAM had found a way for them to talk to each other via the implant. He had told her that Andromeda was essentially shit and that their Dad had died. And since then there had been nothing.

Yeah, she’d been upset. Their Mom was basically still warm in her grave (at least it felt that way, six hundred years were a hard figure to grasp and Sara’s fingers were still struggling to do it) and then Dad was gone the first day he went out there. Being upset was the least she was allowed to do, wasn’t it? Scott would be upset, too, though he’d always had a harder time forgiving Dad for his absentminded dickishness.

Or at least, he’d had a harder time hiding it. Sara’s anger for their father had been a living breathing thing in her gut that she'd cultivated tenderly but only seldom let out. She was pretty sure it died along with him. Or maybe the little thing had grown into the clawed beast that now lived around the parts where her heart lay, fed by the fury that came from helplessness. Maybe that’s how it had gotten so big so fast. It had evolved.

So, yeah. Scott had made her vitals go haywire and that was the last she had heard from either him or SAM. She’d been locked inside her body and left in silence to ponder what her life would become, should she ever wake up. From what she had learned, it had been weeks since that incident. Harry kept muttering that she was making good progress. It was laughable.

Nothing had ever been worse than this.

She was stranded here, a useless sack of meat and bones and sinew, abandoned by her last bit of family.

Not even crying helped, because all she could do was cry inside her head. But oh, how she cried there. In her mind she made sounds she had never heard herself make before and probably couldn’t, even if her muscles did obey her. In her thoughts she wailed and raged, clawing with splintered nails on the walls that shut her in, leaving behind bloody trails.

If she could only wake up.

If only she could.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes Sara dozed.

She spent hours like that and those hours were the best. What did it say about a person that they considered days unnoticed days well spent?

If she dozed there was nobody beside her to rub in the fact that they were awake and ungrateful for it. Nobody to make her feel even more acutely that she was missing _everything_. 

And sometimes Sara slept.

Not only for a few hours. Sometimes she lost days that way. Those days terrified her. And what did it say about a person that they were afraid of the only thing that brought relief?

What if one day she would wake from sleep, if not from her coma, and find everyone gone? What if the Hyperion was attacked by those Kett everybody talked about and she was left here to rot, trapped inside her body until the day she died of natural causes?

What if all of this would never end?

 

* * *

 

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota … Mississippi, Missouri, there were eight starting with M, one missing, ah – Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

Was that fifty? Had she gotten them all?

It didn’t feel like it. One was missing, something was missing.

But which one?

No way to know, better start again.

Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut …

 

* * *

 

How had Sleeping Beauty done this? Hadn’t she slept for a hundred years?

But then again, she’d probably legitimately slept, that lucky bitch. Slept decades away being none the wiser, waiting for her prince to kiss her awake. Could it even be called waiting when the person in question was not conscious for it? Sleeping Beauty basically just laid there, didn’t she? And then, hallelujah, her prince had slain the dragon and kissed her good morning and she’d been all happy and dandy with that.

Maybe that was the problem. Sara always slew her dragons herself and when she was done with those she slew Scott's for good measure, too. No sense in waiting around for somebody else to do it.

Or maybe she wasn’t pretty enough, to be starring in a fairy tale. If Cassius, her childhood playground nemesis, had ever heard Sara “Fat Lips” Ryder think about herself in princess terms he would have laughed until he peed his little turian pants.

Anyway, how come these fairytales were always over once the princess got the guy? What about the aftermath? How had Sleeping Beauty coped with the world outside her castle moving on? Did Snow White feel a thrill of panic every time she saw an apple? Had Beauty never felt a pang of dissonance looking at the newly human Beast she’d fallen in love with?

What was Sara going to do once she woke? What if it took months upon months for it to happen? What if she would never fit in? What if she went crazy first?

What if Scott didn’t need her anymore?

 

* * *

 

Sleeping could make your head fuzzy if you did it too much.

He brain sometimes veritably hurt because she’d forced it to sleep when it wasn’t tired.

She hadn’t even known it was possible. She liked sleep just as much as the next person, but there had always been something to do, something to explore, to excavate. Why sleep if you could dig stuff up from the dirt and try to find out who it belonged to?

Back home, before she’d become an actual archeologist with a diploma and everything, she’d kept a box of knick-knacks she’d found. Scott called her a magpie because shiny things drew her and she had an eye for finding hidden and lost leftovers from other people’s lives.

Now that she was in a new galaxy her fingers were itching to get dirty. Everything here was new. Who could say what she would find. Hell, there would probably be times where she would have no idea what she was even looking at. She fucking yearned for that so much her heart hurt with the force of it. She’d not come here to be idle.

She’d not been born for it.

Ryders were doers. They didn’t let an opportunity pass them by. They looked and searched and found. While it might have looked like nepotism to many that their Dad had asked both her and Scott to be part of the Pathfinder team, it had simply been due to the fact that their father knew exactly what kind of children he had neglected to raise. He knew they were like him, however interesting a point that was for nature in the nature versus nurture debate.

Alec, despite all his faults, had known his kids were perfect for this.

Sara supposed he couldn’t have known what kind of nightmare it would all turn out to be for her.

He’d probably have done it anyway.

 

* * *

 

She always, _always_ forgot Illinois.

 

* * *

 

Extreme situations made you find out what really made people tick.

If there is a threat or a bomb, how do people around you deal with it? Do they stay calm and try to diffuse the situation (ha, bomb pun!)? Do they panic and keep getting in the way? Do they freeze and let their bodies take up space?

Sara had always known she belonged into the first category. In danger, her mind went eerily calm, only for her to freak out hours after the adrenaline had passed through her system.

It was the same now. She’d feel a surge of self-righteous anger that made her insides burn and her ears ring.

A few hours later she'd start hyperventilating in her mind.

Then there was apathy.

Rinse and repeat.

 

* * *

 

She wished she knew what day it was. The day, the hour, the minute. So that she could mark it in her mind and never forget about the moment when, suddenly, everything changed.

She didn’t wake up, no. That would have been too good to be true.

Scott, that little asswipe, didn’t visit, either. She’d (almost) stopped expecting him to.

But someone was here. Someone that was not a doctor, not a nurse. Someone that stood beside her, fidgeting so loudly Sara could hear the friction of cloth against skin.

After days upon days of listening to Harry’s medical speak and, horror upon horrors, starting to understand what all the terms he used actually meant, she finally had something, someone, new to listen to, even if her visitor was exceptionally silent.

He was here for her, wasn’t he? He hadn’t meant to visit somebody else, had somehow gotten turned around and unwittingly wandered to her bed? Because if that was the case she was kind of glad she couldn’t talk and make him aware of that. Whoever this was had to stay, even if he’d only come to insult her and all of her forefathers.

Yes, she was _that_ desperate.

She was bored out of her mind. There were only so many times a person could recite all the states before they went insane from it.

“I- uhm … Hello?”

A thrill went through her once she heard the deep voice of the fidgeteer beside her.

He didn’t expect her to answer, did he? She would if she could but fucking alas …

“SAM said that there was a possibility you could hear it if somebody talked to you. I am … unfamiliar with this coma you appear to be in. I have never met anybody in such a state.”

SAM? _SAM_ had said? If SAM fucking knew that she was fucking awake in here then why didn’t he talk to her? He was an AI and the most advanced one in the galaxy to boot, surely he could find some time in his busy schedule to talk to tiny, unimportant Sara?

She could feel the bitterness inside her take hold once again, the not so little monster in her chest growling savagely with the unfairness of it all. Was she really that much of a bother to everyone?

The man, and it had to be a male if you went by his voice alone, sighed and, if the sound could be trusted, wheeled some kind of chair closer to her bed and sat down on it.

“I am out of my depth, I have to admit. We do not know each other and I’m not sure if you would want to talk with me, were you awake”, the guy said with something vulnerable and achingly unsure in his voice.

 _I would, I_ so _would_ , Sara thought frantically. Even if he went away now, Sara was already so pitifully grateful to him, she would have been ashamed of it, had she found it within herself to give a fuck about things such as _dignity_ right now. 

“I suppose I should tell you my name? I am called Jaal. I’m a travelling companion of your brother. We’ve been fighting the kett together. He is a fearsome warrior and a good friend,” he paused here and Sara was glad for it because the few sentences that had spilled out already left her reeling.

_Jaal._

She’d have to commit that name to memory. If she ever fucking woke up from this curse then he would be the first person she’d search for. The only one that had ever visited her aside from Scott had been someone called Liam and he had only told her to “hang in there” and squeezed her leaden leg.

Hang in there, what a joke. What else was she doing but hanging by a thread?

Jaal sighed beside her. “I’m not sure how to go on. If this is a sleeplike state then there is no reason why you should be able to hear me. But I asked Lexi as well and she says there has been precedent that some coma patients could recall conversations they had heard or known things that were discussed around them. I suppose, if there is even an off chance that this helps, it is worth my discomfort.” More fidgeting. “This chair was not made for angara. It is tiny.”

Sara wished she could draw her brows up, exclaim in surprise, _something_.

Scott had an angara on his crew? She hadn’t known this. Why did nobody talk about this? They all gossiped like fishwives about the angara, the nice guys, the antithesis to the kett, but hadn’t been able to say a word about one of them gallivanting around with Scott’s little ass?

Once more it hit her that she was missing so fucking much. She was missing _it all_.

“Ryder … Scott, he is a good person. When he said he had no time to visit you here, I felt that somebody should do it and I had time on my hands. Family is important to the angara. I know it is not quite the same for humans but I have to say that I was surprised he would not make time for his last bit of family.” He sounded confused and maybe even a bit sad.

 _You and me both, buddy_ , Sara thought glumly but felt weirdly glad that she wasn’t the only one that was unhappy with what her brother was doing.

It tasted like vindication.

“But perhaps, he really is too busy. He will have his reasons. And if I can be a good friend by visiting his true sister, then I’m glad to help,” he added with more enthusiasm. Somehow Scott always managed to get people to make excuses for him, Sara thought somewhat nastily. Maybe she shouldn’t have babied him so much if that’s what she got out of it now.

“I usually spend time in the cultural center. Do you know it?" But then the enthusiasm seemd to leave him with a sigh, as he seemed to remember that she wasn't able to go anywhere right now. "Hm. I suppose you wouldn’t,” he mused, voice dropping a little at the end of the sentence, as though he felt self-conscious. Actually, it was a little refreshing that he _could_ forget it. Her state was such a constant in her life, such an insurmountable obstacle, that it was hard to take.

“No matter. It is fascinating. They brought information about all the species of the Milky Way and it is all available there. We angara love it.”

Oh, god, the way he said “Milky Way”! She supposed it was good that he could not hear her laughing at him.

“I always learn a lot from my time spent there. Did you know that the average salarian only reaches the age of forty? It seems such a short time. No wonder they are so fast in everything they do. To think that, if it were me, more than half of my life would already be over.” A pause. “It is hard to imagine. I need to try and find out how old Kallo is. Kallo pilots the _Tempest_. I wouldn’t like it if he was close to dying and I didn’t know.” God, he sounded so saddened by the prospect. He really had to like this salarian for his voice to take on such a tone. But Sara supposed that was what happened when you travelled with the same crew long enough. You got stitched together like patchwork.

“Anyway, I’ve taken to reading human literature, because Liam keeps making references that I don’t understand. He seems to enjoy stumping me. In retaliation I have taught him one of our marriage songs, telling him it was simply a folk song, which he then promptly sang to Suvi and Kallo.”

Sara snorted. _Take that, “hang in there”, take that_.

“I suppose, I’ll let him know what he did at one point if I’m feeling generous. In the meantime, I’ve downloaded _The Wizard of Oz, The Time Machine_ , and other classics. I’m especially looking forward to reading _Hamlet_ so I can enjoy the elcor rendition of it. Scott has recommended it to me.”

_Oh, god, Scott, you little shit. No._

“I suspect it is horrific by the way he grinned, so I will tell him I loved it no matter my true feelings.”

Scott deserved that.

“I wish, I could ask you for further recommendations. It’s always good to get them from different people. I wonder if you would even agree that this Shakespeare is so essential as Liam thinks he is.”

Sara hated Shakespeare and when she woke up she would tell Jaal so.

Jaal made a little alarmed noise in his throat that subsequently made Sara’s pulse spike a little. “I really hope you cannot hear me. The thought that you are lying here, hearing everything I say would mean that you are awake in there. That would be a truly horrible fate.”

Ah, yes. And he had her crying inside her head. She hadn’t done that today yet, so that was one thing more off her list. It was good to have a routine down, or so she'd heard. 

She heard him stand up beside her, apparently getting ready to leave.

_No, no, no, no, no. Please don’t go, please! I cry all the time anyway, that’s just how I am, don’t let it scare you away!_

He put a hand on her shoulder, bigger than the average human one, but warm and firm as he squeezed.

“Sleep well, Sara. Stay strong. And clear.”

The way he rolled the R in her name made her weep even more.

 

* * *

 

Scott was nothing but professional when he was at work. He did all his assignments on time, even in school, never missed a deadline, and also went about cleaning his gun routinely. He was a model employee.

It was only when it came to the private sector that he could be considered a bit of a slacker. He had missed a call? Whatever person had called him would never get a call back. You had lent him a book? You’d have to needle him for months until you got it back. And when you did, Scott probably hadn’t even read it.

When it came to awkward or problematic situations, well, it was safe to say that Scott avoided those like any sane person did elcor poetry. He gave himself deadlines to deal with the situation and never met them until the problem solved itself or faded into obscurity. Alternatively, if he could make Sara or one of his friends to take care of it, he would ask them in this bashful way he had and they’d do it for him. Everything for her little bro, right?

 _Is that how it’s going to be with me?_ Sara wondered.

_Am I a problem to be delegated now?_

 

* * *

 

She had a new pastime. I had nothing to do with listing states, or cursing her brother, and everything to do with Jaal.

Because he had come back.

She couldn’t believe it. She had thought this was a one-time thing, with Jaal maybe feeling some sort of second-hand guilt that nobody was visiting her. She’d thought that this one visit yesterday would be the last or at least the last for the foreseeable future.

But Jaal had just entered the medbay if his enthusiastic shout of “Sara!” was anything to go by.

“I come bearing gifts! I thought it must be terribly boring for you to listen to me babble about things you already know about so I downloaded more books on my omnitool.”

Bored? How could she ever feel bored? She’d listen to him read the elements off a chart if it only meant she could hear the rumbly goodness of his voice.

It was pathetic how grateful she felt to him. _He had come back_. This wasn’t wishful thinking. He was actually here. If he was a hallucination he was a damn good one.

“I have asked Scott what your favorite reading material was and he said that, whenever you are sick, you like to read fairy tales.”

 _Fuck you, Scott_ , thought Sara venomously. _You have no right to make him think you are a good brother when you won’t even show up here_.

She heard Jaal sit down and huff again, much like he did yesterday. The chair, again? Was it still the tiny one? And how big was this guy that standard Milky Way furniture was uncomfortable to him? If they stood beside each other, he'd probably dwarf her. 

“I’m looking forward to this. Angara have children’s tales, too. Cautionary ones with morals that teach them things like not to wander away. I have told the crew one of them and they found it hilarious, even though it ended with the child being ejected out of a spaceship with the garbage.”

Sara choked.

“Perhaps your stories are less gruesome? In any case, this is my chance to find out and you will get to hear something you like, if you can actually hear me. I’m still not sure about this.” He paused. “I hope I’m not doing this against your will and that Scott wasn’t lying to me. I suppose, if you do not like fairy tales after all, you could doze off? I’m trying to be helpful, I promise. I asked my true mother what she thought about this and she assured me that it was a nice gesture.” He sighed. “I wish you could answer me. I wish you didn’t have to suffer so. This is not a good way to be greeted by a new galaxy.”

Had he made it his life’s mission to make her cry? Sara’s heart squeezed tight in her chest.

She heard him swallow audibly, before he cleared his throat. “I have consulted the database and found that tales by two brothers called ‘Grimm’ seem to be the favored choice among your people. I’ve also been supplied with the most popular stories. The first in the queue is called  ‘Cinderella’. A curious name. You probably know that one, but maybe the familiarity will soothe you. Or put you to sleep. Either way. I’ll start now." He cleared his throat. "‘A rich man's wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near …’”

Jaal read her the whole thing and even if Sara had hated fairy tales with a passion (which she didn’t) it would all have been worth it simply to hear Jaal’s reactions to the, admittedly, pretty bloody tale.

“The stepsister cuts off her toes to fit into the shoe? And there are birds singing about it?”

“And the other cuts off her heel to make her foot the right size? No prince could ever be handsome enough for me to do _that_.”

“Why does the prince need the shoe to find Cinderella anyway? I should think that I would recognize my love anywhere and not simply by their footwear.”

“It ends with the stepsisters being pecked blind by the birds. I think my garbage story was far less gruesome than this. You really read this to your children? I suppose I recognize the moral in it, but still.”

Inside her head Sara was laughing almost hysterically. She had travelled six hundred years for an alien to read her the beloved, bloodthirsty tales of her childhood.

Some things, at least, stayed the same, no matter how many lightyears away her old home lay. She was sick and listening to her favorite fairy tales. 

For a moment, all was well.

 

* * *

 

A new list was in the making.

Things she thought she knew about Jaal:

  * He was a curious guy, eager to learn.
  * He carried his emotions on his sleeve, always voicing them, even if it made him vulnerable.
  * He had a strong relationship with his mother. Sara was sure that he did not only love her but that he actually _liked_ her.
  * He had a beautiful voice. That was fact.
  * He talked very deliberately, like he wanted to make sure you knew he meant every word he said.
  * He liked to tinker. He had told her so.
  * He was big, if the way he kept grumbling about the chair was any indication.
  * He was considerate. The fact that he came by so often, every day the last five days, was enough to prove that.
  * He was a sweetheart. See reason above.
  * He was older than twenty but younger than thirty if his comment about salarians could be trusted. 
  * He really cared for Scott. Enough that he would visit his comatose sister and read her children’s tales, because he had heard she liked that. Who even did that.
  * He was beautiful. No matter that Sara had no idea what he looked like. She had made her mind up about it, because a person that nice was beautiful no matter what.



 

* * *

 

After an unspecified amount of days during which Sara lost an entire week to oblivion, the _Tempest_ had apparently docked at the Nexus again so the crew could take care of some business.

She’d heard the news from an excited lab technician that had seen Scott walk into SAM node. How far away could that room be from the cryobay? A few minutes? Hell, technically speaking it was possible that only a wall or two separated her from her sibling and that hurt like a son of a bitch. That hurt on a level that made Sara keen on the inside.

A coma was all it had taken for Scott to rid himself of her. Maybe that was what he had always wanted. Maybe she had always been an oppressive force to him.

Well, he was free of her now.

“I’m very proud of myself, by the way,” said Jaal, tearing her out of her dark musings again. Instantly, she felt guilty that she’d been wallowing in her misery instead of listening to him.

_Get a grip, Sara. You can cry like baby because your brother doesn’t like you all day. Take a break while Jaal is here. You owe him that._

“Before we came here we had a mission on Kadara. I don’t know if I told you, but I hate that planet.”

He _had_ told her. Repeatedly.

“It incorporates everything that is bad in the universe. You’ll see soon enough that this is true,” Jaal said knowledgably. “Ryder, Scott, I mean, still insists on taking me along at times, no matter how often I voice my distaste and Liam tells me my complaining is not justified. I got my revenge on him.”

Sara had to smile inwardly, rooting for Jaal all the way.

“A shot grazed Liam’s leg. Raiders. Nothing serious, I assure you. We were able to patch him up with medigel on the road. But he had to take off his boot and some blood dripped out.” He cleared his throat. “I thought of one of the tales you and I read and said ‘Rook di goo, rook di goo! There's blood in the shoe’.”

The laugh he let out sounded highly self-satisfied and Sara could practically hear the smirk in his voice as he continued. “Scott started laughing at him immediately and Liam was shocked at my newfound literary prowess. I rendered him speechless. It was the best thing that ever happened on Kadara,” he ended his story decisively and Sara found herself laughing along with him silently.

_Good on you, big guy._

Jaal seemed to sober up, however. “Scott later pulled me aside and asked me if I really had gone to read you fairy tales. Apparently, he hadn’t thought I would.”

The little monster inside her reared its ugly head again, even though she’d just wrestled it into silence. Of course Scott hadn’t. Always projecting his own character on others, that was her brother.

Her companion sighed. “I wish I knew why he doesn’t come himself. I should think that you would draw greater comfort from his presence than mine.”

 _Don’t be so sure about that._ Sara wasn’t on the best of terms with Scott right now. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted him to slink in here anymore. Now that he hadn’t visited her so long he might as well stick it out until she woke up or died, for all she cared. (She almost believed herself.)

“Anyway. Let me tell you more of our adventures. If I tell you enough of them you won’t need anyone to catch you up once you’re awake.”

If she could have, Sara would have swallowed drily. Her throat felt tight in any case.

Jaal. Assuager of fears. Soother of minds. It was unlikely he knew that it was one of her greatest fears to wake up and be so out of the loop that nobody would bother to try and tell her everything she had missed. But still, it felt like he somehow instinctively _did_ know it. What was that called? Empathy?

Aside from Scott, Sara had never felt so close to anyone until now.

She’d find a way to thank him for all he did for her. Even if it would take her a lifetime to do it. 

 

* * *

 

Sometimes, when the silence became too much to bear, she wondered what it would be like to …

Even though she wasn’t sure it was anatomically possible. But if it was, then she just had to imagine it would be wonderful. Soft. Warm. Grounding. All encompassing. Like he was.

Did angara even have lips? It would be a shame if they didn’t.

 

* * *

 

He came to her every day the _Tempest_ was docked at the Nexus. As far as she knew, he never missed a day, even if he came for just a  few minutes. It became the one thing she looked forward to, having given up hope that Scott would show his face entirely.

These days her deepest fear was that Jaal would come to her during a time she was blacked out. She didn’t know if it had happened before and the uncertainty made her wish she could grit her teeth together to somehow express her frustration. So far, he hadn’t referred to any stories she couldn’t remember being told, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.

Jaal was in the middle of telling her a story and she kept her ears peeled. She didn’t want to miss even one thing. She was awake right now. She could control what she remembered and fuck if she wouldn’t remember all Jaal told her while she was conscious to hear it.

“And then Peebee found a pair of – what do you call them – boxer shorts? Underwear, in any case, lying on the Nomad. Ryder was acting very suspiciously, telling us to go be elsewhere while he would find the owner of them. But then Peebee had her remnant observer collect them for her and had it fly around with them like it was waving a flag. It was glorious,” Jaal told her with a booming laugh.

The _Tempest_ sounded like a seriously fun place to be. Even if she was sure that her brother had something to do with those boxers somehow.

“Of course we all knew who this underwear belonged to. Ryder’s and Gil’s relationship is hardly secret. I don’t know why he frets so. Love is a wonderful thing to be celebrated and we are all very happy for him.”

What.

“Additionally, if they didn’t want us to know about it, then they should not consummate their relationship around the Nomad. At least, I hope it was around it, or on top of it, and not inside. I don’t want to sit in anything, if you catch my drift.”

 _Relationship_?

Jaal kept chuckling a little but the sound quieted more and more until there was only silence.

“Oh. It occurs to me that I shouldn’t have told you this. You didn’t know about it. Scott should have been the one to tell you. I don’t suppose he has been by without talking to me about it?”

They both knew that was a fruitless hope by the way Jaal took a few seconds to go on.

“I’m angry at him, which is probably wrong. One should not be angry at something because they don’t understand it. But I’m angry at him anyway, for not visiting. I have no idea how it must make you feel.”

How _did_ it make her feel? Numb? No, there was too much emotion inside of her for that. Sara felt betrayed, actually. By her own brother, by the universe.

Scott’s luck with men had always been so abysmal. Cheaters and thieves, the lot of them. He had terrible judgment in character where his dick was involved. How often had they sat together and cursed every man on the planet, the galaxy even (one guy had been a drell, after all) no matter how stupid that was because Scott was one of those accursed men, too? She’d listened to all the stories, helped him kick their asses when she could, and assured him there had to be someone out there for him.

And now he had found that someone and not told her anything about it?

How many times could he let her down before she finally came to expect it? Every new revelation hurt just as much as the one that came before. When would she learn? God, she was so stupid. Wasn’t it obvious by now that he didn’t care for her at the moment? That she was an afterthought?

And she kind of got that. There was a galaxy that needed saving and her brother had to be the one to do it for some reason. Stuff like that happened. Apparently. 

But that he couldn’t spare her even one minute to tell her he was in love …

“Hm. Talking about this makes me think that I don’t know if you have anyone special waiting for you to wake up.”

 _If I did, I’d hope they’d be there_ , Sara thought grimly. Going by her brother, though, maybe not.

“But then, I would think that I would have met them, waiting by your side for you to wake up,” he echoed her thoughts. “Or maybe your dearest one hasn’t been woken from sleep, yet? I will ask Scott, once I see him again. It makes me sad to think that you really came here with so little.” He laughed in a way that sounded self-deprecating. “And if you really did, you don’t need me telling you this right now. I’m sorry.” 

 _It’s okay. My life_ is _pretty pathetic right now._

“I look forward to hearing your voice once you are awake. I hope we can become friends as well. From what Scott has been telling me, you are a force to be reckoned with. You sound formidable.”

_Oh?_

Jaal’s clothing rustled as he moved and Sara wished she knew what he was wearing. Anything to better imagine what he looked like.

And then Jaal proceeded to tell her about all the things he had heard her do. About all the childhood bullies whose shins she’d kicked and names she’d spit. About that one guy she’d punched when he had called her father a criminal. About the time she’d dressed down her own superior at an excavation site for dismissing part of a Prothean relic as rubbish.

It was good to hear. Though on the inside it made her cheeks burn to hear Jaal sing her praises, even if he had only heard about them second-hand, it showed her that not all the times she had looked out for Scott had been unwelcome. He hadn’t held a grudge for all this time without her knowing.

He was being a dick for different reasons, even if he was still being a massive one and she hadn’t forgiven him. Not even a bit. But knowing this ... 

What a nice gift.

 

* * *

 

One day after Jaal had left, having spent the better part of an hour with her (at least) and having read her _The Little Match Girl_ (“This seems to have no lesson. Why would you read something so sad to someone? I’m sorry. I will steer clear of Hans Christian Andersen in the future.”) she heard footsteps come up to her and hesitantly stop by her side again.

Her heart picked up a little. Or it would have, if it didn’t beat steadily in her chest. Sara was excited anyway. Was it Scott?

“So, this is where he goes all the time.”

It wasn’t Scott.

Unless the pitch of her brother’s voice had significantly changed.

“I-uh. I’m Peebee? From Scott’s crew? Goddess, this is stupid,” she mumbled the last part.

Peebee, huh? It seemed she had followed Jaal here. Hadn't Jaal told anyone that he was visiting her? Was it a secret? Was _she_? Maybe Scott didn’t want anyone to know she was here. The way he ignored her, she might as well not have existed.

“I mean, I thought I heard him talk to Liam about visiting you, but I didn’t think he would do it more than once. But that’s dumb of me. I know Jaal well enough by now, I should think, to know that he does stuff like this.”

She heard Peebee walk around her, stop by the machines at her head for a bit, then turn on her heel and walk to the foot of her bed.

“Not a great conversationalist, are you?”

 _Fuck you_ , Sara thought viciously.

Peebee laughed. “You’re in a coma. Of course, you aren’t. I suppose it was wishful thinking that my melodious voice would wake you up instantly. But honestly, what does Jaal do in here for so long?”

She shuffled around a bit more, then seemed to come to a decision and sat down on the chair Jaal had just vacated.

“There must be something about you, for him to keep coming back. Maybe you do tricks in your sleep? I blew off Vetra for this, you know. You better make it worth my while.”

 _Would that I could, Peebee_. How hilarious would it be if she could wake up right now and slowly sit up with outstretched arms like mummies in old movies? Ah, another opportunity wasted. She had so much to do once she woke up. Maybe she should make another list.

“It’s a shame you can’t properly appreciate him visiting you.”

 _I_ am _appreciating it! Really, really!_

“If you could just see him. I mean, the angara are all beautiful, especially the males, but Jaal is actually dreamy. And I don’t use that term lightly. I’m not like Lexi who is into this one turian from that one stupid medical drama. His fringe isn’t even that good. I bet it feels weird, no chance that look is natural.”

With that Peebee had her attention completely. She could talk about Jaal forever and never stop. Sara was all ears.

“I don’t want to spoil him for you, so I’ll stop.”

_NO!_

“But he’s a serious beefcake. And those eyes …” She paused. “I’m fanning myself, just so you know. I would swoon, but this chair has no backrest and I don’t want to fall over.”

That had Sara cracking up internally.

“This is actually kind of therapeutic. I can tell you stuff, and you probably won’t remember anyway. Let me see … ah, has Jaal told you about the time Vetra’s kid sister sold the genome for cats to someone, so they could start breeding them?”

Though she could not answer, Sara listened and after Peebee left after a lot more time than Sara would have expected her to stay for, she felt like she had gained another friend.

And the number of people she would hug the living daylights out of once she was awake again increased to two.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes she didn’t stop at kissing. Sometimes she let it go further.

Of course, she had no idea what she was working with so she mainly focused on what it would feel like.

Strong, warm hands stroking over her body. Gently, but with determination. A powerful body above her, exuding heat, though not quite touching. Hands that gripped her neck and drew her head up for a kiss that would have made her weak in the knees had she not already been lying down.

Fingers that played with the long strands of her hair, making her sigh with pleasure.

Warm breath huffing in a laugh against her, due to her reaction to even the barest of his touches. He would like it if he made her feel good, she was sure.

A cheek touching hers, smooth (or rough?) skin against hers, rubbing softly. A tongue on her throat, making her shiver.

She’d grip his back, let her fingers trail down his muscles, across his sides. Would he be ticklish? He would feel perfect under her hands, she just knew it. It was him, after all. It was Jaal. What could he be but wonderful?

He’d kiss every last little spot of her body, would worship her, wind her up until she would be full to bursting with lust and feeling.

When he would finally slide into her it would feel like coming home. Like being the only two people in the universe doing the only thing that mattered.

God, it would feel so good.

He would fill her up so well. She’d be so wet for him that every push inside of her would make them both fly only higher and higher until they reached their peak together.

Would he shake in her arms as he came apart? Would he be loud? She hoped he would.

She wanted to find out about all Jaal had to give.

 

* * *

 

She knew how pathetic this was. Nobody had to tell her and, thankfully, nobody did.

 

* * *

 

“I have learned valuable information today, Sara,” Jaal intoned once he was sitting beside her some days later.

 _Sounds intriguing_ , Sara thought.

“When I asked if you had a special someone still in cryo, Scott laughed at me.”

_He did what?!_

“He said that you are very awkward with anyone you are interested in and called this the reason why you have never had a real relationship.”

If Sara could have screamed in frustration she would have. Hadn’t Scott done enough already? Did he have to ridicule her in front of Jaal, who had been her lifeline during this ordeal?

“I found this very interesting. The stories he tells about you always make you seem like you would fear nothing. It is a little intimidating. It is nice to see that everybody has baggage to deal with.”

Suddenly, she could feel a hand on hers. Jaal took it and arranged it so that it lay between both of his.

Sara wasn’t quite sure but she thought this might be what a stroke felt like.

“That is not to say that I’m glad you’ve never had a relationship. You deserve it if it is what you want. I see how happy Gil makes Scott and I think that it must be worth it. I’m sure you will think so as well, once you see them.”

He had taken off his gloves. There was no fabric between them. His fingers felt soft, not rough. _Soft_. She’d been right.

“I hope it is alright that I touch you like this. I’ve been talking to you so much that it feels odd, never touching you.”

For a few moments they remained like this, with Jaal idly playing with her fingers, stroking the backs of them between his.

“I have been thinking about how to greet you, once you are awake. I’m not sure if it would be welcome, but I would like to hug you. Scott has become such a good friend over the last few months. He feels like family. This makes you family, too.”

 _I would love that_ , she thought as hard as she could. As if he could hear her if she just put enough effort into it.

“I hope that would be alright,” Jaal added quietly, before letting his breath, intermingled with hers, become the only sound between them.

 

* * *

 

Hug her. He wanted to hug her.

It wasn’t just her, he wanted it, too.

Fuck, how much she wanted that.

She wanted to hug him and never let go.

Sara knew this wasn’t healthy. And she wasn’t dumb enough not to know what exactly _this_ was.

She was developing feelings, and not of the platonic sort, for someone she had neither seen nor spoken to. By all means, this shouldn’t be possible. Who had ever heard of such a thing happening? It was absurd, was what it was, but it was happening right now, no matter how stupid or improbable. Sara was here, in a different galaxy, and slowly falling for a compassionate alien that might resemble a slug for all she knew, no matter what Peebee said. Some asari were into krogan after all. It was an irrefutable fact.

Sara was fucked and that was it.

He had visited her so many times. She hadn't kept count, but even though the _Tempest_ did not dock at the Nexus that often he kept coming back. He could have no idea how much that meant to someone that felt as abandoned as Sara did. 

Something about their earlier conversation had shaken something loose within her. He had called her family. However, she wasn’t family because of her own merit, but because Scott was such a good bro to him that she was considered family by extension. That idea didn’t sit right with her at all. It had no worth. It only meant something to Scott, showed how much he had done for Jaal. And probably, he even deserved it, with the saving the Moshae, and not blowing up that facility because Jaal asked him to, and letting Jaal handle the confrontation with that Roekaar leader Akksul. Probably, Scott had been so much of a personal hero to Jaal that he deserved to be family.

But Sara had not earned her place there. And she wanted to. She wanted Jaal to look at her with admiration, wanted him to call her formidable because of things she’d done for him, and look at her like she was the most beautiful thing in the world.

She wanted to be there for him like he had been for her. Sara had been trapped in darkness and he’d been the only light. She wanted to know if this feeling, this preoccupation, would keep once she was awake. Sure, she’d still owe him so, so much for this kindness he had shown her. But if she was mistaking gratefulness for romantic feelings then she’d realize that soon enough.

Most of all, she was excited to find out.

And this realization, the realization that she finally, finally, felt something different than anger and hurt, that she felt something good, something so inherently positive, was suddenly the final straw.

On top of the boredom, the fear, the hate, the disappointment, and anger, fell this morsel of excitement and hope. Wasn’t hope the thing at the bottom of Pandora’s box? Well, it was on the top of the veritable mountain of feelings that had piled up inside of her and she was finally ready to burst.  

It was one more thing she could not voice, not act upon.

And it was one thing too much.

Putting her last strength and effort into it she strained against the invisible ties that held her down on this bed. She needed to get to this man she’d never even seen. She needed to talk to him, touch him, find out if there was any possibility he could ever feel a bit of the same she felt for him. She liked him so goddamn much and hadn’t even held a conversation with him. And even if it was a bust, even if Jaal should turn out to be a beast once met head-on, even if her interest in him was fleeting and would fade, that was a risk she would gladly take.

Sara could hear the machine that monitored her vitals go crazy behind her and suddenly the pitter patter of running feet drew nearer from her left.

She needed out. She needed to finally live again. Be herself again.

She needed to wake up and kick her brother’s ass.

She needed to explore this new galaxy as she had always been supposed to.

And with the thought of Jaal on her mind something finally gave.

It felt as though the weight of the whole, entire universe was slowly being lifted away from her body and she could finally, finally move again.

Gasping, she drew a deep breath into her burning lungs and opened her eyes.

To blinding light.

**Author's Note:**

> Story title and plot inspired by “Cosmic Love” by Florence + The Machine 
> 
> I have no beta reader, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.
> 
> This is part 1 of 3, I think. Next time witness: Sara screaming bloody murder, Scott getting his ass kicked, Peebee being thanked, and Jaal being stared at with dumb heart eyes.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. Remember, comments and kudos are love and will make me write faster. Unless you don't want to read more, I guess. Ah, damn.
> 
> If any of you want to hit me up on tumblr, I'm called laughing-lady-of-the-skies there :)


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